New legislation reforming the U.S. criminal justice system is likely to take decades to pass/implement and will be unlikely to work retroactively.
President Obama can pave the way for sweeping changes in U.S. criminal justice by pardoning all non-violent inmates. By emptying our prisons of non-violent offenders, President Obama will
1) Eliminate prison over-crowding
2) Increase the size of the U.S. workforce
3) Achieve justice in ongoing race/income discrimination cases (non-violent)
4) Reduce federal and state spending on prisons
5) Provide a near-"blank slate" to state and federal legislators where they only need to worry about future, rather than present, offenders.
The current pardoning process would need to be revised to allow for the enormous volume of this pardon.